Monday, June 15, 2009

The Netanyahu Speech

I was listening to Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech, delayed, on Cspan last night and I was thinking to myself as I listened, “Boy, it sounds like he’s trying to piss off as many people as possible.” Judging from reactions in the news today, it sounds like he succeeded very well.

Obama didn’t sound all that annoyed, but then Obama doesn’t do annoyed. You could pee on Obama’s leg and he would barely raise his eyebrows. The Secret Service would, of course, raise considerably more than eyebrows.

Obama said the speech was a “great step forward.” He didn’t say forward toward what.

The Washington Post headline was “Netanyahu endorses 2-state goal.” Either they were listening to a different speech than I was, or they have a different definition of “state” than I do. To me a “state” gets to at least go rabbit hunting within its own borders, controls its own air space, and doesn’t have to ask permission from Israel to sign treaties. Netanyahu maybe endorsed a “1.25-state goal.”

Palestinians would have their own national anthem and flag. They can sing and wave their flag, so that's all good. Singing and flag waving is excellent.

Netanyahu said that he would meet with the Palestinians without any preconditions. He then listed half a dozen things that the Palestinians would have to do before that non-preconditioned meeting could take place.

One commentator said that Netanyahu’s terms were “carved in stone.” I don’t think so. If all of those terms were carved in stone, Israel would have sunk into the sea under the sheer weight of them.

At one point Netanyahu said that Israel had withdrawn its settlements from Gaza and was “rewarded with a hail of rockets.” I think the hail of rockets had less to do with Israel’s withdrawal than with it subsequently sealing the borders and denying the Gazans any food, fuel or electricity. People who are sitting in the dark, starving and freezing, tend to be a bit peevish.

I found myself wishing I had kept count of how many times the word “peace” occurred in the speech, compared to how many times for “demand.” It was a lot for both; I think “peace” won by a narrow margin, but only because he sometimes said that the Palestinians “must” do things.

He’s quite a guy. I’m going to call him “Giggles” from now on.

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